Stop a Bullet, Stop a War

May 30 2012, 8:49 AM by Rosie Cowling

Oxfam’s report on the ATT, ‘Stop a Bullet, Stop a War’, has been published today.

The paper reveals a poorly regulated ammunition trade within which few countries report on their ammunition exports, leading to bullets ending up diverted into the hands of militias, causing human rights abuses and enduring conflicts. It also states a need for transparent reporting and better monitoring of the ammunition trade by intergovernmental agencies.

Think twice

From Anna McDonald, head of arms control campaigning at Oxfam: “Guns are useless without bullets. Bullets are what turn guns into lethal weapons. It is absolutely essential that the sale of ammunition is included in the [ATT] and it is far better regulated. It would be totally irrational to leave it out.

“The trade in ammunition is lucrative; but while the monetary cost of production is low, the price paid in human lives for the trade in ammunition is incalculable. An Arms Trade Treaty which doesn’t include the trade in bullets doesn’t make sense.”

Lucrative indeed: the global trade in ammunition is worth an estimated $4.3 billion a year. Every year, 12 billion bullets are produced. That’s enough to kill everyone on the planet twice over.

Scroll down to read an interview by Democracy in Africa with co-author of the report Deepayan Basu Ray, Oxfam GB Policy Advisor on Arms and Development, on why leaving the ammunition trade out of negotiations would be a harmful loophole.

From an ethical perspective, the trade in arms is not the same as the trade in other consumer goods. Arms are specifically designed to kill, injure, or destroy. As such, the trade in arms needs to have tight controls, because the costs of misuse are counted in lives and livelihoods. Our report, Africa’s Missing Billions, estimates that conflict costs Africa $18 billion every year, a staggering amount.

The best estimate of casualties is that conflict and armed violence kill 2,00 people every day. An effective Arms Trade Treaty would be an instrument that is legally binding, with global reach, and comprehensive in its scope and criteria. These elements are absolutely critical. Without them, the ATT will not be able to bring the international arms trade under effective regulation, and will not achieve its goal of reducing human harm.

What impact is the ATT likely to have on Democracy and Democratisation in Africa?

The ATT on its own is not a panacea. It will require a number of parallel processes, and regional, and national-level initiatives to make it successful. Assuming that the diplomatic negotiations are able to deliver a comprehensive treaty (including provisions for ensuring that arms transfers do not affect socio-economic development), then there are likely to be considerable positive impacts on processes of democratisation. For example, let us take the issue of corruption and fiscal irresponsibility. If the treaty includes strong anti-corruption mechanisms, then governments around the world would need to ensure that they are effectively combating corruption, or else they would risk impacting on their ability to procure arms.

As a second issue, under the treaty, military activities will need to be more transparent and more strongly governed to prevent diversion of arms and ammunition from the intended end-user.

Your past report suggested “the devil is in the detail”; what potential loopholes are you worried about in the ATT?

There is little use for a legally binding treaty if the thresholds for the controls are so low that the treaty effectively legitimises the existing trade! Therefore, the treaty needs to have strong and unambiguous language, for example:

“States shall not transfer arms if these transfers affect development/human rights etc. in a negative way.”

This strong language needs to be applicable to the full range of conventional arms and ammunition. What use is a treaty to control the trade in arms if the trade in ammunition – which makes these arms lethal – is overlooked?

How likely do you think it is that such a treaty will be ratified in the Senate?

Given that the US is one of the world’s biggest arms exporters, its participation in an ATT is crucial. The current set of national rules that govern the sale of US conventional arms and ammunition is some of the strongest in the world. It will therefore be in the US’s best interest to ensure that the ATT does not weaken existing US thresholds.

Approval in the Senate is at the present time is unlikely. Although Senate ratification is the desired end-result, the Landmines treaty serves as a good example of other alternatives. Though the US has not signed it, they have also not acted in contravention of the principles and standards of the Landmines treaty.

In addition, under the Vienna Convention on Treaty Law, states which sign a Treaty are bound even before ratification not to act in contravention of the intent of the treaty they have signed.

Do you think that the ATT can be effectively policed? What are the big challenges for doing so?

The ATT will not have a ‘policing’ role per say. States are not at all interested in setting up some form of supra-national body that can punish states if they act outside the guidelines set up by the treaty.

The ATT will however rely on annual reports on national implementation of the treaty and on the imports and exports of arms. Lack of implementation and contentious transfers could be debated in the annual meetings, which should over time strengthen the global norm as expressed in the ATT on what states responsibilities are and what constitutes an unacceptable arms transfer.

The treaty will also rely on the ‘court of public opinion’ to encourage changes in behaviour by member states. This does introduce a number of challenges – the most obvious one being that if states are not going to be punished for their actions, what initiative will they have to act within the parameters?

However, these mechanisms are not totally impotent, in that states quickly realise the benefits of “playing by the rules”. Finally, if states act flagrantly in violation of the Treaty then it would be open to other states to ask the International Court of Justice to rule on the legality of their actions. In this way, the ATT could be reinforced over time.

The Control Arms campaign is a global civil society alliance that has advocated for a bulletproof Arms Trade Treaty for over a decade. Made up of over 100 charity, nonprofit, and nongovernmental groups throughout the world, Control Arms continues to strive for a world where deadly weapons are kept out of the wrong hands through a regulated arms trade.